A blog about songwriting and about the songwriter Luigi Cappel

Archive for the ‘youtube’ Category

I’ve just spent a week on the beautiful island of Rarotonga. Of course my guitar came with me and I deliberately turned my mobile off and stayed away from the Internet.

I was lucky on the way over, the woman at the check in counter had a son studying violin and went and asked her supervisor to waive the $75 for a second piece of luggage. Had to pay on the way back, but that’s how it is these days. If I had more legs on the trip it would have been cheaper to buy another guitar than pay the excess luggage!

Whenever I have a holiday, whether its domestic or international I try to write a song to remember the place by and Raro was no exception.

I bought a new video camera before I left. Haven’t read the manual yet, but I managed to take some video and photos. When I got back I got on to my trusty Tascam and recorded a couple of guitar tracks and the bass.

I was hoping the camera software would have a feature allowing me to add a soundtrack to the video clips but it didn’t. Fortunately when I came back, my computer wanted to do an update of Windows Live, which I don’t actually use, but I saw it came with Windows Live Video Editor, so I thought, “why not?”

Turned out to be really easy to use. I didn’t need to read a manual and figured out how to upload clips, edit them, do transitions, title etc and upload the soundtrack and match the video to the length of the track. This is all a first for me and I was pleased to see that Windows Live also included an upload to YouTube feature, so I now have a new YouTube Video.

I hope you will have a watch and let me know if you like the song. I’ve been wanting to do YouTube videos for ages and so far, bar one the only YouTube videos featuring me were done by other people.

So here is my view of Rarotonga. If you like it, please tell someone else (and me:)).

Many people will tell you that there are 2 key ingedients in writing a great country song, the first is telling a good story and the other is roping you in so that you get emotionally involved in the story.

Today I received a ‘friend request’ on my MySpace page from Kirsty Lee Akers. Her voice sounded a little like Dolly Parton’s and that isn’t a bad thing. But this girl is from Australia and is totally her own person. She has some really good songs, covering a range of topics that show up her talents and belie her age, but one of them prompted me to stop what I was doing and really listen.

Any song that really makes you listen and can evoke emotions the way The Territory did in me, shows great talent. Kirsty Lee has a great voice, clear and crisp, but what stands out is the story which even without a great video is very moving. Another thing you should do is have your own website and hers is crisp, modern and yet you get the impression that she is sharing herself with you.

I recommend a close listen to each word for an example on how to craft a great song.